A NATIONAL SYSTEM 
^ OF EDUCATION -P 

WALTER SCOTT ATHEARN 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 
WALTER SCOTT ATHEARN 



THE MERRICK LECTURES 

AN ENDOWED LECTURESHIP IN THE FIELD O^ PRACTICAL 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE OHIO WES- 
LEYAN UNIVERSITY, DELAWARE, OHIO. 

The lectures already delivered upon the Merrick Foundation are as 
follows: 

Daniel Curry, D.D.: Christian Education. 

President James McCosh, D.D., LL.D.: Tests of the Various 

Kinds of Truth. 
Bishop Randolph S. Foster, D.D., LL.D.: The Philosophy of 

Christian Experience. 
Professor James Stalker, D.D.: The Preacher and His Models. 
John W. Butler, D.D.: Mission Work in Mexico. 
Professor George Adam Smith, D.D., LL.D.: Christ in the|_01d 

Testament. 
Bishop James W. Bashford, Ph.D., D.D., LL.D.: The Science of 

Religion. 
James W. Buckley, D.D., LL.D.: The Natural and Spiritual 

Orders and their Relations. 
John R. Mott, M.A., F.R.G.S., LL.D.: The Pastor and Modern 

Missions. 
Bishop Elijah E. Hoss, D.D., LL.D.; Professor Doremus A. 

Hayes, Ph.D., S.T.D., LL.D.; Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., 

LL.D.; Bishop William F. McDowell, D.D., LL.D.; Bishop 

Edwin H. Hughes, D.D.: The New Age and Its Creed. 
Robert E. Speer, M.A. : The Marks of a Man, or the Essentials of 

Christian Character. 
Rev. Charles Stelzle, Miss Jane Addams, Commissioner of 

Labor Charles P. Neill, Ph.D., Prof. Graham Taylor, and 

Rev. George P. Eckman, D.D.: The Social Application of 

Religion. 
Rev. George Jackson, M.A.: Some Old Testament Problems. 
Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch, D.D.: Christianizing the Social 

Order. 
Prof. G. A. Johnston Ross, M.A.: One Avenue of Faith. 
Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D.: What the War is Teaching. 
Robert E. Speer, M.A.: Some Needed Notes in American 

Character. 
Rev. John Kelman, D.D.: The War and Preaching. 
Prof. Walter S. Athearn, M.A. : A National System of Education. 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM 
OF EDUCATION 



BY 

WALTER SCOTT ATHEARN 

DIRECTOR DEPARTMENT OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
AND SOCIAL SERVICE, BOSTON UNIVERSITY 




NEW ^SW^ YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



A 






COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



*0 mwfiMm liOST w)? f 

MAY 1? '961 



PRINTED IN TH 




TES OF AMERICA 



PREFACE 

A reconstruction and a reevalnation of edu- 
cational theory and practice have been forced 
upon us by the tragic events of the past five 
years. A new educational literature is already 
appearing, bringing with it a new vocabulary 
and announcing a new technique. A renais- 
sance in education has already begun. The fac- 
tors necessary for the rebirth had been gradu- 
ally maturing for two decades. The world war 
broke the shell and gave the setting for the de- 
velopment of the new life which is to dominate 
our educational circles in the period of world 
rebuilding which is just ahead. 

When the whole field of educational recon- 
struction is viewed by one whose primal inter- 
est is in moral and religious education, three 
needs stand out in the foreground as the most 
important, and the most immediate problems 
in American education. The first and most 
fundamental is for an adequate philosophy of 
education. In the early history of our Ameri- 
can school system, we borrowed much of our 
educational machinery and method from Eu- 



vi PREFACE 

rope; in recent years we have been importing 
European and Oriental philosophies of educa- 
tion. There is great danger that we shall build 
the educational program of our new democracy 
upon a philosophy which will in the end accom- 
plish the undoing of democracy. There is ur- 
gent need for the restudy of the philosophy of 
democracy, the philosophy of religion, and es- 
pecially the philosophy of the Christian re- 
ligion, and for the building of an educational 
philosophy which will fittingly express the 
ideals of a democratic and spiritually minded 
people. I am convinced that the battle ground 
in the field of religious education for the next 
decade will not be in the field of organization 
and methodology, but in the field of educational 
theory. 

The second and most apparent need is for the 
development of a professional spirit among ed- 
ucators. This need is especially acute in the 
field of religious education. The events of the 
past few years have revealed an appalling 
dearth of academic and professional interest 
in religious education. There is need of an ed- 
ucational leadership that will die for the cause 
— for a revival of that disinterested spirit of 
martyrdom which gives up life itself that the 
cause may live. This spirit takes its cue from 
the laboratory, not from the counting room. 



PREFACE vii 

It experiments, weighs, measures and tests, and 
modestly and humbly gives its results tc man- 
kind, seeking no reward save the joy of search- 
ing for and finding the truth. For such disin- 
terested, professional leadership there is a cry- 
ing need. 

The third and most immediate need is for a 
clearly outlined program for the organization 
and administration of secular and religious 
schools in a democracy. The agencies and in- 
stitutions that are to control religious educa- 
tion during the next fifty years are now taking 
form. The voice of the educator has too sel- 
dom been heard in the councils of reorganiza- 
tion. The National Educational Association 
came up to this national crisis with a states- 
manlike program for secular education which is 
embodied in the Smith-Towner Bill. This great 
educational program challenges the educational 
leadership of the Church to produce a program 
which will be equally scientific, equally demo- 
cratic and equally prophetic. What is needed 
is a blue print which will indicate the general 
architectural stnicture, and a statement of the 
fundamental principles which are to guide the 
workmen as they fill in the details of the com- 
pleted structure. 

These lectures are presented as a contribu- 
tion towards meeting the last of these three out- 



viii PREFACE 

standing needs in the field of American edu- 
cation. The lectures are the result of a decade 
of actual laboratory experimentation. Many- 
types of organizations have been established in 
different communities, and the results carefully 
studied. These results have been compared 
with the results of similar experiments in the 
field of secular education. 

I am indebted to the President, Trustees and 
Faculty of Ohio Wesleyan University for the 
privilege of presenting these studies to the stu- 
dents of the university as the Merrick Lectures 
of 1919. 

Walter Scott Atheaeit. 

Boston, Mass., November 27, 1919. 



CONTENTS 

CHAFTER PAOB 

I : PRESENT TENDENCIES IN AMERICAN EDU- 
CATION 
Health education — Industrial and vocational edu- 
cation — The socialized curriculum — The universalized 
high school — NaturaUstic tendencies in secular edu- 
cation — A national system of public schools — The 
place of rehgion in the educational program of a 
democracy 13 

II: THE EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM 
OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
The European background — The early reading 
schools and the American academy — Elements bor- 
rowed from Europe — The welding process — Teacher 
training schools — Changes in the curriculum — Social 
sohdarity in a democracy — The secularization of the 
pubhc schools 32 

III: PROBLEMS IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF 
A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 
Biu^aucracy and paternaUsm — Centrahzed author- 
ity, local initiative and professional freedom — The 
function of a national education association — Prob- 
xems of administration and control — The responsi- 
biUty of the schools to the people 53 

IV: A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDU- 
CATION 
Methods of teaching religion to the American people 
— Denominational educational machinery — Provi- 
ix 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

sion for professional growth — Interdenominational 
cooperation in religious education — The Maiden ex- 
periment reviewed — Christian citizenship the basis 
of locol control 69 

V: A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDU- 
CATION (continued) 
Coordination of denominational and interdenomi- 
national machinery— -The coordination of a national 
system of public schools with a national system of 
reUgious schools — The necessity for fusion of curric- 
ula — Relation of Protestant, Jewish and CathoUc 
schools to the pubhc schools — Leadership — Elements 
in a statesmanlike program of religious education . 99 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

On Educational Organization and Admiaistration — 
On the English Education Bill — On the Evolution of 
the PubUc School System of the United States — On 
Present Tendencies in American Education . . . 123 

INDEX 131 



DIAGRAMS 



NO. PAQB 

I A Dual School System. — Germany .... 35 
II A Dual School System. — England .... 39 

III The Development of a Unified System op 

Public Schools in the United States . . 43 

IV Correlation op Schools, Colleges and Agen- 

cies OP Supervision 47 

V An Especiallt Bad Form op Educational 

Organization 63 

(From Cubberley, Public School Administration. 
By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 

VI Plan op Educational Organization for a 

Large City School System, and Showing 
Proper Relationships 67 

(From Cubberley, Public School Administration. 
By permisaion of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 

VII Showing Education as Subordinate to Pub- 

UCITY 71 

VIII Showing Religious Education as a Missionary 

Extension Enterprise 76 

IX Interlocking Boards and Secretarial Combi- 
nations 79 

X A Standard Organization for Religious 

Education 83 

XI Organization op the Malden System op 

Religious Education 101 

XII The Coordination op Denominational and 

Interdenominational Control .... 105 

XIII The Coordination of Church and State Schools 109 

XIV A Suggested Coordination op Public Schools 

with Jewish, Catholic and Protestant 

Educational Systems 115 

xi 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 



A NATIONAL SYSTEM 
OF EDUCATION 

CHAPTER I 

PRESENT TENDENCIES IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 

Pour thousand two hundred college profes- 
sors caused the great World War. Four thou- 
sand two hundred college professors can cause 
another World War. In the last analysis the 
destiny of any nation is determined by the 
schoolmasters of that nation. The disarma- 
ment of the Central Powers will not insure 
world peace. Unless the very nature of the 
Prussian educational system can be changed, 
there will sooner or later appear in Central Eu- 
rope a race of men that will again terrorize the 
free people of the earth. 

Because of the vital relationship between ed- 
ucation and social welfare, those who seek to 
reconstruct society on a permanent basis will 
do well to inquire into the present tendencies in 

13 



14 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

education as they have been influenced by the 
war. After a very careful analysis of the edu- 
cational literature of Europe, Asia and Amer J 
ica, I feel safe in predicting certain changes in* 
the educational systems of the allied nations. 
I shall discuss these changes only as they are 
taking form in the United States of America. 

1. Health Education,— The first change to 
be noted is a new emphasis on health education. 
The whole nation was startled by the announce- 
ment that twenty-nine percent of our drafted 
men were unfit for military duty because of 
physical ailments contracted in times of peace. 
The effect of this announcement will be seen in 
a modified curriculum in our schools and col- 
leges. I do not think we will come to com- 
pulsory mihtary education. It seems to be the 
consensus of opinion among educators that 
compulsory military education is not the best 
way to give the physical development that will 
prepare our people for both peace and war. I 
do think, however, that we are to have compul- 
sory physical education. There will be courses 
in physiology and hygiene in our elementary 
schools and colleges; in our secondary schools 
and colleges there will be courses in social hy- 
giene ; and in our graduate schools there will be 
unprecedented development in medical research 
and preventive medicine. We have just 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 15 

passed through an epidemic of influenza which 
has cost millions of lives. When a plague of 
this kind breaks out in the future, we will not 
be content to call out the preachers to pray for 
the abatement of the plague. We will also call 
out the policemen. We will enlist our most 
skillful detectives. We wiU trace down the man 
who let loose the disease germs upon society 
and hang him, because by crimes of neglect he 
has murdered his fellow men. 

At a recent meeting of representative public 
school-teachers, the following resolution was 
discussed: ** Resolved, that in the future no 
student should be permitted to graduate from 
an American high school who, at the time of 
graduation, suffers from any remediable physi- 
cal defect. ' ' This resolution reflects the temper 
of the American educators. It means a revised 
curriculum, playgrounds, gymnasiums, profes- 
sional playground directors ; it means free den- 
tal and medical clinics and visiting nurses; it 
means school cafeterias, etc. In short, it means 
that we have set out to produce a race of men 
and women who are physically fit to sustain the 
institutions of a democratic people. 

2. Industrial, and Vocational Education. 
— The second tendency to be noted is the greatly 
increased emphasis on industrial and vocational 
education. The movement in this direction had 



16 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

gained great headway before the Great War. 
It is now under full steam. The war called for 
the development of applied science in the in- 
terests of both the production and the destruc- 
tion of property. The devastated world is now 
to be rebuilded; a hungTy world is to be fed; 
world commerce is to be reestablished. All this 
demands skilled labor. The schools are re- 
sponding to the demand. Institutes of tech- 
nology have doubled their capacity and elemen- 
tary schools have increased their vocational 
electives. Under the provisions of the Smith- 
Hughes Bill, a national subsidy is being used to 
encourage vocational training. As a result of 
these influences boys and girls in the seventh 
and eighth grades are encouraged to elect their 
studies in the interest of their future vocation. 
In the high school they are met by a largely in- 
creased group of popular vocational electives. 
From the vocationalized high school they can 
go to the junior college where majors and 
minors are determined on the basis of voca- 
tional needs. There is now an increased ten- 
dency to rest the professional and technical 
schools down upon the junior college instead of 
the senior college. It thus becomes possible 
to begin the student's vocational preparation 
in the seventh grade of the elementary school, 
carry it on through the high school and build 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 17 

a side-track around the old-time cultural 
courses leading to the baccalaureate degrees, 
by taking students from the sophomore class by 
means of pre-medical, pre-law and pre-engi- 
neering courses directly into the professional 
and technical schools. 

In this craze for vocational and industrial ef- 
ficiency we face a very real danger. A citizen 
in a democracy needs something more than vo- 
cational efficiency. He must be an intelligent 
voter as well as a skilled artisan. We shall not 
have industrial peace until every citizen enjoys 
a satisfying portion of all the good things which 
the earth possesses. Among the good things 
of the earth which must be equitably distributed 
are knowledge, music, art, literature, the old 
and new ''humanities." There are evidences 
that the older disciplines will not retire without 
a struggle, but that they must take account of 
the movement for vocational and industrial ed- 
ucation is apparent to all. The schools are get- 
ting our people ready to sustain an industrial 
democracy. 

3. Social Education. — Perhaps the most 
profound change which is occurring in our 
schools is in the direction of a socialized cur- 
riculum. It is evident that a people individu- 
alistically trained cannot sustain the social in- 
stitutions of a democracy. The humanities 



18 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

were at the core of the curricula of our early- 
schools. During the past century the humani- 
ties gave way to the physical sciences. Our 
schools have taught us about things ; they have 
not taught us about people. We were compelled 
to learn about the stars in the heavens; about 
the crust of the earth upon which we walked; 
we studied the flowers by the roadside and the 
animal life in our midst. We studied every- 
thing except people. Is it any wonder we are 
in the midst of social unrest with no solvent for 
our social problems? Social experimentation 
with newly released psychic forces which are 
little understood and with which there has been 
little laboratory analysis may be expected to 
produce a series of social catastrophes before 
they are brought under control. The response 
of the schools to the present social-industrial 
revolution wiU be the socializing of our cur- 
ricula. The core of the curricula will not be 
the physical sciences. At the heart of our cur- 
ricula will be the social sciences — sociology, 
ethics, psychology, economics, history and gov- 
ernment. The only protection our people can 
have from the political demagogue or the irre- 
sponsible social agitator is training in the so- 
cial sciences. 

Contemplate the problems which the masses 
must solve ! Among them are the regulation of 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 19 

railroads — our whole transportation system; 
capital and labor; racial adjustments; national 
finance; the unearned increment; the temper- 
ance question; the right of collective bargain- 
ing, eta 

It is self-evident that these subjects can not 
be taught in our elementary schools. Where 
then can they be taught? The answer is the 
universalized high school. Our compulsory 
school-age must be raised from fourteen years 
to eighteen years, and the state must make it 
economically possible for its youth to remain 
in school during that period of early and middle 
adolescence during which life 's great ideals are 
formed and life 's greatest choices are made. 

The American High School has been well 
called the People 's College. It now enrolls over 
one and one-half million boys and girls. This is 
one for every sixty-seven of our population. No 
other nation has ever had so large a percentage 
of its population in secondary schools. At the 
rate of growth for the twenty years preceding 
the war, we would approach universal high 
school attendance by 1950 without special legis- 
lation. Present developments will hasten the 
coming of the compulsory universal high school. 

We have one and one-half million young peo- 
ple in our high schools receiving training for 
citizenship; but we have six and one-half 



20 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

million young people of high school age who are 
not in any school. Thousands of them are in 
the industries and thousands are to-day out on 
strike. They will soon come to the polls to 
vote and their verdict will register the impres- 
sion of immaturity in the midst of physical and 
psychic forces which they will not be pre- 
pared to interpret. 

If the universal high school came to-day, we 
would be compelled to enter upon a high school 
building enterprise, unprecedented in all his- 
tory to furnish seating facilities for six and 
one-half million new pupils. We would need 
two hundred thousand new high school teachers 
at once. " This would take the entire output of 
all our colleges, at the present rate of gradua- 
tion, for the next twenty years. 

The moment sociology, psychology and eth- 
ics become a part of the public school curricu- 
lum, other profound changes will occur. 
Physics brought the physical laboratory ; chem- 
istry brought the chemical laboratory. Just as 
certainly sociology will demand a sociological 
laboratory. This laboratory will be the com- 
munity. Already the Bureau of Education 
in Washington is fostering a community center 
program. Its slogan is ''Every community a 
little democracy and every schoolhouse the cap- 
itol of the community." This means that in 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 21 

the near future the recreation aud play pro- 
grams of the community will be directed largely 
by the public schools. It means that the pub- 
lic schools will take over the activities of 
such organizations as the Boy Scouts, Girl 
Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Boys' and Girls' 
Departments of the Christian Associations, 
and give them local direction and control 
and make them part and parcel of the pub- 
lic school system just as inter-collegiate 
athletics are now, with no independent national 
associations to project policies in opposition to 
the ideas of the teachers of sociologj' and ethics 
in the high schools. It is inevitable that the 
community will be the laboratory for the so- 
cialized high school. When this time comes, the 
church will face a new jjroblem. We have just 
passed through a period when the church had 
to deal with the results of the teaching of biol- 
ogy, evolution and the scientific method. The 
Sunday-school teacher of the immediate future 
will be faced by pupils who know modem sci- 
ence, but who also know sociology and who have 
a theory of ethics — a way of life — which they 
are able to defend with skill. If the Sunday- 
school teacher does not know the principles 
which underlie the ethics of Jesus, if she is not 
trained in the science of society, she will be fig- 
uratively ** argued off her feet" by her pupih:^, 



22 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

and the teachings of Jesus will fail to command 
the interest of our youth. 

Suppose the social theory taught in the pub- 
lic schools should be naturalistic and material- 
istic. It happens that the three most influen- 
tial leaders in American education during the 
past twenty years have been champions of nat- 
uralistic and materialistic philosophies of edu- 
cation. Their theories are not only influencing 
public education, but they are being carried over 
into religious education, where they find expres- 
sion in the current tendency to secularize the 
Sunday-school curriculum. 

One of these leaders stresses instincts and de- 
mauds that all instincts shall have freedom to 
develop without inhibition. This doctrine as- 
sumes the infallibility of nature and asks its 
devotees slavishly to follow nature. It asks 
parents, teachers and social institutions to re- 
frain from imposing upon the ** natural man" 
any standards which have resulted from racial 
experience. Here is a doctrine of freedom on 
the basis of animal instincts. 

A second theory, now the most influential in 
American education, is a rare combination of 
pragmatic philosophy and functional psychol- 
ogy. Besides its own converts, it has inherited 
many of the followers of Herbart. When Her- 
bartian psychology became untenable, the edu- 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 23 

oators who had rested their pedagogical pro- 
gram upon it were forced either to abandon 
their methods or to find a new theory to sus- 
tain them. They chose the latter and eagerly 
accepted pragmatic philosophy and an extreme 
form of functional psychology. This theory 
stresses the doctrine of interest instead of in- 
stincts. It makes much of the sense of a ''felt 
need'* in the organism. The organism has cer- 
tain *'satisfiers" and certain "annoyers." The 
child is to be taught to gratify the *'satisfiers" 
and inhibit the ''annoyers," on the basis of the 
' ' felt need, ' ' which, of course, is the endorsement 
of immediate interests as a guide to conduct. It 
has little place for a systematic study of racial 
experience — formal knowledge. It stresses 
freedom, interest, activity. It has no place for 
indoctrination. The child must learn every- 
thing through his own actual contact with soci- 
ety and the physical universe. There is little 
place for racial experience as a basis of control. 
Children are allowed to do as they please; so 
also are adults, subject only to their one inune- 
diate interest. 

A disciple of this theory recently evaluated a 
large number of educational agencies and the 
friends of the Sunday school were surprised to 
find that institution classed eighth from the top 
of the list. But the Sunday school has a place 



24 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

for the indoctrination of the young with racial 
experiences. This theory does not. 

The two theories just discussed emphasize 
freedom, seK-interest, initiative, which are the 
individualistic factors in society. To overem- 
phasize these factors in a democracy would lead 
to Bolshevism and anarchy of the most extreme 
type. One of the most insidious influences in 
our political and religious life to-day is the 
growth of this doctrine of freedom which has no 
place for authority outside of individual ca- 
price. These theories tend to level society down 
to the natural, brute, instinctive level of living. 
They have no way to level society up. Put into 
operation they would annihilate democracy. 
Just as this doctrine held by Tolstoi finds a fit- 
ting expression in Eussian Bolshevism to-day, 
so the same theory of freedom introduced into 
our school system to-day will by the same lev- 
eling-down process produce an American Bol- 
shevism to-morrow. 

Democracy involves the rule of the common 
mind. A level of conduct ' ' safe for the world ' ' 
is established and democracy finds a way to en- 
force the mil of the common mind upon the in- 
dividual who does not wish to order his life on 
the level of the common good. In other words, 
there must be a place for compulsion in democ- 
racy. Education is one of the most effective 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 25 

agencies used by a democracy in indoctrinat- 
ing the people ^vith the 'Svill of the majority." 

The Christian church believes that the uni- 
versal mind of Christ is the only level of con- 
duct which will be safe for the world, and it 
proceeds systematically to indoctrinate the 
minds of all men with the standards, ideals and 
personal experiences of Jesus Christ in the in- 
terest of a permanent brotherhood of man. 

The universal acceptance of materialistic 
theories of society by the public schools would 
be fatal to the church as well as fatal to democ- 
racy. It is for this reason that the church must 
take an active interest in the development of the 
social program of the schools. The course of 
the public schools has been determined. They 
are preparing our people to sustain a socialized- 
industrial-democracy. 

4. A National. System of Education. — Be- 
fore the Civil War we had little national recog- 
nition of education. The Civil War gave us a 
bureau of education attached to the Department 
of the Interior. A little later when we had ac- 
quired Alaska and the reindeer industry had 
developed, the task of caring for the reindeer 
was assigned to the United States Commis- 
sioner of Education. The man who oversees 
the raising of hogs in this country has a seat in 
the President's cabinet, but the man who over- 



26 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

sees the education of our boys and girls does 
not have a seat in the President's cabinet. He 
has a seat in a crowded section of the pension 
office and spends half his time gathering and 
distributing educational statistics and the other 
half feeding the reindeer in Alaska ! One of the 
educational results of the World War will be 
the establishing of a National Department of 
Education with a Secretary of Education in the 
President's cabinet. 

The bill creating this department, known as 
the Smith-Towner Bill, is being actively sup- 
ported by our leading educators and the Prot- 
estant churches are actively committed to its 
support. It represents the program of the pub- 
lic schools for the period of reconstruction. At 
present forty-one millions of dollars are annu- 
ally paid out of the national treasury for the 
aid of some form of education. This money is 
expended by more than thirty-five different de- 
partments or bureaus. The Smith-Towner Bill 
continues present provisions and adds one hun- 
dred million dollars annually to the national 
grants for the encouraging of education. The 
funds are distributed through states upon the 
condition that the legislatures of the respec- 
tive states shall raise equal amounts for the 
same purposes. The funds are apportioned as 
follows : 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 27 

Eemoval of adult illiteracy $7,500,000 

Americanization 7,500,000 

Equalizing educational opportunity. 50,000,000 

Health education 20,000,000 

Teacher preparation 15,000,000 

Total $100,000,000 

Amount appropriated through other 
bureaus 41,000,000 

Total $141,000,000 

Amount which must be appropriated 
by states in order to receive national 
aid $100,000,000 

Total amount available for national 
and state aid of education 241,000,000 

Amount raised annually by local taxa- 
tion for school purposes (esti- 
mated) 1,000,000,000 

Total annual cost of public schools. . $1,241,000,000 

Years ago the question of state aid for local 
school purposes was fought out and it is now 
the settled policy of our states. The Smith- 
Towner Bill extends the principle to the nation. 
It provides that national resources may be so 
distributed as to guarantee educational priv- 
ileges to the whole people. In other words, it 
asks the rich states to help to provide schools 
for states that are too poor to provide them 
for themselves. The amazing fact that we now 
have five and one-half million illiterates in 
America who are above ten years of age is ex- 



28 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

plained largely by the fact that the taxable 
value of property in mountain and other sec- 
tions will not provide adequate school facilities. 
The safety of the nation demands that the 
richer sections shall be willing to pay for the 
schools in the poorer sections. This may best 
be done by some national method of raising and 
administering funds which are used for the 
equalizing of educational opportunities. All of 
the property of the whole people should be 
taxed to provide an educational opportunity for 
all the children of all of the people. No child 
should be damned to illiteracy because he 
chanced to be bom in one of the waste places of 
the nation. The Smith-Towner Bill takes the 
missionary spirit into secular education. Home 
Mission Boards of the Protestant churches are 
spending large sums of money operating day 
schools in neglected places. The state should 
relieve them of this burden. The support of 
this bill by the church is but an expression of 
the conviction of the Protestant church that 
Christian citizens should aid the state in guar- 
anteeing educational privileges to all the chil- 
dren of the nation regardless of whether they 
were horn in centers of w&alth or in some of the 
waste and neglected places of the country. 

Because of the absolute necessity of correct- 
ing the outstanding defects in our present school 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 29 

system, it is only a question of a short time be- 
fore we shall have an effective national system 
of education. Local initiative and control will 
be safeguarded and the nation will encourage 
and unify the whole educational program. We 
have set out to build the most effective system 
of education which the world has ever seen. 
These schools mil give us a people physically 
and mentally capable of sustaining a socialized- 
industrial-dem ocra cy. 

5. The Place of Eeligion in the Educa- 
tional Pkogram of a Democracy. — But the 
democratic state has not yet established the ma- 
chinery which will conserve and perpetuate the 
moral and spiritual achievements of the race and 
guarantee that the citizenship of the future will 
he dominated by the highest moral and spir- 
itual ideals. Democracy must learn how to 
make intelligence and righteousness co-exten- 
sive. A new piece of machinery must be cre- 
ated and made a vital, integral part of the life 
of every community. This new piece of ma- 
chinery must spiritualize our citizenship just 
as the public school makes it wise and efficient. 
A skilled hand and an informed mind must be 
united with a good heart to produce a citizen 
safe for the democracy of the future. The na- 
tion that can build this new machinery will write 



30 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

a new page in the history of democratic gov- 
ernment. 

The task of religious education is to motivate 
conduct in terms of a religious ideal of life. 
The facts and experiences of life must be in- 
terfused with religious meaning. In a democ- 
racy the conmion facts, attitudes and ideals 
given as a basis of common action must be sur- 
charged with religious interpretation. Spir- 
itual significance and God-consciousness must 
attach to the entire content of the secular cur- 
riculum. Unless the curriculum of the church 
school can pick up the curriculum of the public 
school and shoot it full of religious meaning, 
the church cannot guarantee that the conduct 
of the citizens of the future will be religiously 
motivated. 

The church cannot ask the state to teach re- 
ligion, but the church can ask for an adequate 
amount of the children's time on Sundays and 
during weekdays to insure the religious train- 
ing of all the people under church auspices. 
The price we must pay for our reUgious liberty 
is whatever price it may take to build and main- 
tain an efficient system of religious schools, com- 
plementing the public schools. 

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the 
present emergency in our religious life demands 
the sympathetic cooperation of all denomina- 



PRESENT TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 31 

tional and inter-denominational agencies. The 
national public school system must be supple- 
mented by a unified system of religious educa- 
1 which wiU guarantee the spiritual homo- 
geneity of our democracy. Unless such a sys- 
tem of religious education can be created, there 
is great danger that our system of secular 
schools will become naturalistic and material- 
istic in theory and practice and that the direc- 
tion of social development will be determined 
by a secular state rather than by the spiritual 
forces represented by the church. 

Each rebgious denomination has, as its great- 
est present responsibility, the development of 
an efficient system of church schools and the 
correlation of these schools, with those of other 
denonainations, into a unified system of re- 
ligious education for the American people. 



CHAPTEE II 

THE EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM OP PUBLIC 
SCHOOLS 

In order to work intelligently at the prob- 
lems of American education, one must know the 
historic background of our present school sys- 
tem. Without attempting a detailed analysis 
of the historic sources, I wish to present in dia- 
grammatic form the school systems from which 
our present schools have evolved. 

1. The European Background. — ^Diagram 
I shows the German school system. On the 
left is shown the Volksschule, a system of rudi- 
mentary, vernacular, oral, free, eight-grade 
schools, attended by ninety-two percent of the 
people. In these schools the people were 
taught to be the willing burden bearers, the 
obedient servants of the ruling class. Here they 
were consciously rendered unfit to participate 
in the formation of state policies. In return 
for non-reasoned obedience, they received the 
protection of a paternalistic state. In these 
schools religion was used as an instrument in 



EVOLUTION OF A xXATIONAL SYSTEM 33 

the hands of the ruling class to keep the people 
obedient. The teachers in these schools are its 
own graduates who have had but two years 
of advance training. From the Volksschule 
students may go forward into the Lehrersemi- 
nar to prepare to return to the Volksschule as 
teachers. Students in the Lehrerseminar are 
not permitted to enter the university except in 
Saxony, and here they are merely permitted to 
attend classes without academic credit for their 
work. From the Volksschule students may go 
into the army as privates, but they have no hope 
of ever becoming officers. From the Volks- 
schule students may also enter the trade schools 
to be trained as skilled laborers in the indus- 
tries of the Empire. In the Volksschule we 
have an invention of the autocratic state de- 
signed to keep the masses in willing obedience 
to the state. The ultimate sin of Prussia is best 
seen here. It consists in denying to the people 
the right to grow through an intelligent partici- 
pation in the formation of the laivs they are to 
obey. An American educator visited three 
hundred recitations in German schools before 
he heard a single question from a pupil. They 
were encouraged to sit with open mouths and 
ears, listen to instruction and give back to the 
teacher the exact language they had heard. 
There is no place for the development of initia- 



34 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

tive, invention, originality — the essential fac- 
tors in the citizens of a democracy. 

The right hand side of Diagram I shows the 
Gymnasium, a twelve-year tuition school for the 
aristocracy. This school enrolls eight percent 
of the population. Those who enter it know 
from the beginning that they are to be the rul- 
ers of the ninety-two percent who are in the 
Volksschule. The air of arrogant command is 
instilled in its pupils from the first day. In the 
Gymnasium the course of study is very rich. 
Higher mathematics and science are taught 
from the sixth year on. German, Roman and 
Greek history are included in the curriculum, 
as are also the Latin, the French and the Eng- 
lish languages. 

Graduates of the Gymnasium can enter the 
university and go on to the professional schools ; 
they can enter the army as officers, or they can 
enter the schools of technology. 

An examination of the German school system 
shows a dual system; one type of schools pre- 
paring the masses for non-resistance and servi- 
tude; the other type of schools preparing the 
rulers for lives of luxury and autocratic domin- 
ion over their subjects. It is evident that un- 
less this system is fundamentally changed, 
Germany cannot operate a democratic form of 
government. 



DIAGRAM No. 1 


















M 












ll 




8 










t/t 


£ 








.^S 


^ 


<>i 








.0) o 

> w 

o 


o 

5 

E 


1 

C 

U 

a> 

1- 






^ 












sn 




«j 










o 




c 










o 

SI 


>, 


E 












E 


CO 










«) 


^ 


>- 










T3 














CD 




£ 














0) 










1— 




^ 




GYMNASIUM 




VOLKSSCHULE 








Rich curriculum 






Free, 




Tuition 






Oral, 




For the 






Rudimentary 




aristocracy 






8 Years 




12 Years 




FOR THE MASSES 






FOR THE RULING 










CLASS 


i 


\ DUAL SCHOOL 


SYST 


EM.— GERMANY 



Diagram I 
35 



EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM 37 

Diagram II shows the English educational 
system. On the left is shown the Free Schools. 
These schools cover twelve years of work. They 
are vernacular, rudimentary schools. No Latin 
and no higher mathematics have been allowed 
in these schools. They are comparable to the 
Volksschule in Germany. They are designed 
primarily for the children of the poor. The 
Free Schools grew out of the early mission 
schools. In 1780 Robert Raikes founded Sun- 
day schools for the poor children of Gloucester, 
who were employed in the pin factories during 
the week. These early Sunday schools were 
not designed to teach religion. They were in- 
tended to teach exactly the same things which 
were taught to the children of well-to-do par- 
ents on week-days. The Sunday schools de- 
veloped into week-day mission schools for the 
poor and finally into the Free Schools. They 
were originally supported by philanthropy, but 
in recent years many municipalities have taken 
over the support of the Free Schools. 

On the right hand side of Diagram II there 
is shown the Secondary or Tuition schools of 
England. These are the schools of the chil- 
dren of the well-to-do. The course is twelve 
years in duration. The curriculum is rich in 
languages, science, history and mathematics. 
These schools are comparable to the Gymnasium 



38 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

of Germany. From these schools students can 
go to the university and on to the professional 
and technical schools. Originally there was no 
way to cross over from the Free schools to the 
Secondary schools. Later, wealthy men en- 
dowed scholarships, known as Bursaries, to 
meet the tuition of bright students who gave 
promise of conspicuous careers. These '' Bur- 
saries" were never popular with the teachers of 
the Secondary schools, who found difficulty in 
caring for pupils who came to their courses with 
irregular preparation. Matthew Arnold called 
these scholarships the Educational Ladder. 
The English Labor Party in presenting its de- 
mands for a revision of the English school sys- 
tem demanded that Matthew Arnold's educa- 
tional ladder should be replaced with an educa- 
tional stairway. 

A suggestion as to the educational changes 
that are to take place in England is found in the 
provision of the English Education Bill. The 
purpose of the Bill is to develop a strong nation 
with broader human sympathies "by offering 
to every child the opportunity to enjoy that 
form of education most adapted to fashion its 
qualities to the higher use." The humanities 
are defined as the studies that will acquaint the 
students ''with the capacities and ideals of man- 
kind as expressed in literature and art, with its 



DIAGRAM No. H: 




Professional 
Schools 


Technical 
Schools 






UNIVERSITY 
























FREE SCHOOLS 


..'^".'' 


SECONDARY 
SCHOOLS 






Rudimentary 




Tuition 






For children of the 




Rich curriculum 






poor 




For children 






Grew out of 




of the 






mission schools 




well-to-do 






12 Years 




12 Years 






FOR THE POOR 


FOR THE RICH 




/ 


{ DUAL SCHOOL SYSTEM.— ENGLAND 







Diagram II 



EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM 41 

achievements and ambitions as recorded in his- 
tory, and with the nature and laws of the world 
as interpreted by science, philosophy and re- 
ligion." 

2. The Evolution of Schools in the 
United States. — Diagram III depicts the 
units which have entered into the school sys- 
tem of the United States. The first schools es- 
tablished by the colonists were the reading 
schools which were held for a few months eacli 
year. The Protestant Reformation had sup- 
planted the Holy Church with a Holy Booh. 
This Holy Book contained the words of eternal 
life. Through it God spoke to each human be- 
ing. It was, therefore, incumbent upon all 
Protestant communities to teach all people to 
read as a necessary prerequisite to salvation 
and as a means of future communion with God. 
These early reading schools were under local 
control. It should be noted that they were 
reading schools as distinguished from the oral 
schools of Germany. They gave their pupils 
the key to the literature of the world. 

In these early days industrial education was 
provided for in the home. 

The next schools established in America were 
our colleges. Harvard and Yale led the way 
in the field of higher learning. They were es- 
tablished primarily to train men for the Chris- 



42 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

tian ministry and for the other learned pro- 
fessions. At first boys were prepared for col- 
lege by the local ministers. Later the Latin 
or Grammar schools were imported from Eu- 
rope for this purpose. 

After the Revolutionary War, as the wealth 
of the people increased, they desired to give 
their children more education than was pro- 
vided in the reading schools. Only a few cared 
to enter the professions by way of the Latin 
schools. There were no secondary or interme- 
diate schools for the rank and file of the peo- 
ple. Out of this need came the American acad- 
emy, an indigenous American institution. The 
academy was hailed as the people's college. 
Everything was taught for which there was a 
popular demand. After years of competition 
the academy and the Latin schools were fused 
during the two decades following 1850. This 
fusion formed the modern high school with its 
core of cultural subjects from the Latin school 
and its rich elective system from the academy. 

The next stage in the evolution of our public 
school system was the period of borrowing 
from Europe. Horace Mann visited Prussia 
seeking suggestions for the improving of our 
elementary schools. He was so impressed with 
the Volksschule that he brought it home with 
him, and it became the eight-grade common 



DIAGRAM No. Ill 










Ui 


8 


W) 


University 


o 
o 

sz 


fl) 


o 
o 




to 




c 


(T) 




o 


















t- 


C 








o 




O. 




nj 


College 










o 








> 




\ 



(junior College) 



High 
School 



(Junior High 
School) 



Common 
School 

Eight Years 




E<^ 



1846 



Lehrer- 
Seminar 




Kindergarten 



The Development of a Unified System of Public 
Schools in the 'United States 



Diagram III 
43 



EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM 45 

school system of the United States. During the 
years that have intervened it has been a rudi- 
mentary, vernacular school. It seems unbeliev- 
able that the system of schools that was de- 
signed to unfit men for democratic citizenship 
should have been made the cornerstone of the 
school system of a democratic people ! With the 
Volksschule came the Lehrers&niinar, which 
became the American normal school. The most 
recent borrowing from Europe is the attempt 
of the American business interests to import 
the Prussian trade schools. A decade ago in- 
dustry in this country demanded skilled ar- 
tisans who could compete with German work- 
men. An American educator was sent to Prus- 
sia to study its trade school system. He re- 
turned with a carefully worked-out plan for the 
establishing of trade schools on the Prussian 
plan in this country. The National Society for 
the Promotion of Industrial Education was the 
agency of propaganda, and the Smith-Hughes 
Bill for the encouraging of industrial educa- 
tion is the result. This bill, now a law, gives 
us for the first time in our country the begin- 
ning of a dual system of schools. The univer- 
sal adoption of the spirit of its provisions 
would develop class consciousness and create 
one body of citizens trained for the industries, 
and another body trained to be their rulers. It 



46 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

is to the credit of the American people that they 
are accepting the provisions of this bill only 
in so far as they can be coordinated with our 
regular high school programs. An account of 
the borrowed elements in our school system 
must include the Kindergarten, the Volks- 
schule, the Leherseminar, the trade school, the 
Latin school and the college. The indigenous 
elements are the reading schools and the acad- 
emy. Diagram III shows the units as they 
are assembled for final welding into a unified 
system of schools. These are in order the Kin- 
dergarten, the common schools, the high school, 
the college, the graduate, vocational, profes- 
sional and technical schools. 

3. The Welding Process. — The first weld- 
ing will unite the Kindergarten and the first 
grade. The discussion is now at white heat in 
kindergarten circles and a reconstructed kin- 
dergarten program is sure to result. The sec- 
ond joint to be united is between the common 
school and the high school. This gap will be 
filled with the Junior High School, which will 
include the seventh and eighth grades of the 
common schools and the first year of the high 
school. The next gap to be filled is between 
the high school and the college. This gap will 
be spanned by the junior college organization. 
There will then remain the problem of relat- 



DIAGRAM No IV 



National Department 

of 

Education 


Graduate 
Teachers' College 


u 

s 

q: 


<0_ 

y o 

>- 


.18 
P 


1 

a 

.0 

c 


<0 

c 

"cS 

£ 

?^ 

1^ 
TO 

c 
g 

CO 
u 


State Departments 

of 

Education 


College Departments 

of 

Education 

Normal Schools 


Senior College 


Junior College 


County and City 

Departments 

of 

Education 


Normal Training 
Courses 


Senior High 
Schools 




County and City 

Institutes 

and 

Reading Courses 


Junior High 
Schools 




Village and Ward 
Supervision 


Elementary 
School 





CORREUTION OF SCHOOLS. COLLEGES 
AND AGENCIES OF SUPERVISION 



Diagram IV 
47 



EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM 49 

ing the senior college to the research depart- 
ments and to the vocational and professional 
schools. Specialists are struggling with these 
many complex problems, with the clearly de- 
fined purpose of unifying our educational sys- 
tem from the kindergarten to the professional 
and technical schools. 

4. Teacheb Training Schools. — By the side 
of the system of schools for the masses there 
must be developed a system of teacher train- 
ing schools from the graduate school to the 
teachers' institute in the local community, and 
these two systems of schools must involve a 
system of supervision which will include a na- 
tional secretary of education and state, county, 
city and village superintendents. Diagram IV 
shows the correlation of these systems. 

5. The Evolution of the Cueeiculum. — 
The curriculum of the schools of the United 
States has felt the influence of many schools of 
psychology, philosophy and social theory. Ed- 
ucational science is developing means of analy- 
sis and exact measurement, and democracy will 
profit greatly from the research which is now 
under full headway in this field. On one thing 
there is no ground for difference. The curricur- 
lum of the schools of a democratic people must 
contain the common elements which mil guar- 
antee the social solidarity of the nation. 



50 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

It is recognized by all that the great weak- 
ness of democracy is individualism. The Cen- 
tral Powers insisted that a democracy cannot 
protect the individuals in its membership be- 
cause there is no way to secure mass action in 
times of attack from without. These Powers, 
therefore, asked the individuals to surrender 
their individuality to an overruling, military 
class which could secure mass action by exter- 
nal pressure — ^by the iron hand of compulsion. 

We represent another theory of government 
and we must find another way to secure social 
solidarity — to overcome the defects of individu- 
alism without destroying the rights of indi- 
viduals. We accomplish this end through the 
public school system. Here we inoculate our 
people with common facts, common mental at- 
titudes, common ideals. For a hundred years 
our public schools have been teaching patri- 
otism, freedom, democracy, justice, — until our 
people possess a common background as the 
basis of collective action. When an example 
of national injustice is held up before the Amer- 
ican people, they react together, as surely as 
iron filings fly to a magnet. We get social soli- 
darity through internal impulsion, not through 
external compulsion. The basis of this social 
solidarity is the likemindedness guaranteed by 
the public schools. It is for this reason that the 



EVOLUTION OF A NATIONAL SYSTEM 51 

state can compel attendance upon the public 
schools. Any influence which withdraws chil- 
dren from the public schools is undemocratic, 
and tends toward the disruption of the demo- 
cratic state. It follows, therefore, that no sub- 
ject should have a place in the public schools 
which would give any man a just excuse for 
withdrawing his children from the schools. 

6. The Secularization of the Public 
Schools. — Following the Revolutionary War, 
the influx of immigrants from both northern 
and southern Europe raised the problem of re- 
ligious instruction in the public schools. As 
long as there was but one religious faith in the 
colony, there was no objection to religious in- 
struction in the schools. When there were 
many religious faiths in the colony, a new 
method must be found to teach religion. The 
reasoning was simple: if the common schools 
are to be the melting pot into which all the chil- 
dren of all the people are to be thrown for the 
purpose of fusing them into one homogeneous 
nation, it is clear that no subject should be in- 
troduced into the schools that would give any 
parent a just excuse to withdraw his children 
from the schools. Consequently, in the inter- 
ests of the social solidarity of our people re- 
ligion went out of our public schools, and the 



52 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

churches and homes were charged with the im- 
portant duty. 

Face to face with the duty of teaching re- 
ligion, the American church imported the Sun- 
day school from England, transformed it from 
a secular school meeting on Sunday into a 
school designed primarily for the teaching of 
religion and developed it into a unique and in- 
fluential system of religious schools. The ver- 
dict of the American people has been rendered. 
Eeligion will not be taught in our public schools. 
If religion is taught to the American people, it 
will be done in our homes and in our churches 
and church schools. 

In this period of educational reconstruction, 
when the nation is projecting a statesmanlike 
program of secular education, it behooves the 
church to take account of its educational stock 
and to project a statesmanlike program of re- 
ligious education which will guarantee the spir- 
itual homogeneity of our people and enable 
them to take real leadership in that federation 
of nations which is to constitute the new world 
order. 



CHAPTER III 

PROBLEMS IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF A NATIONAL 
SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

By the very logic of necessity we are soon to 
have national recognition of education with 
some form of national supervision and control. 
A vast national subsidy, such as that provided 
by the Smith-Towner Bill, placed in the hands 
of a group of educators who use it to stimulate 
conformity to certain educational standards and 
ideals, will be a powerful factor in unifying 
local educational programs and in developing 
a real national program for education. 
Through common elements in the curriculum 
and common school disciplines, there will be 
produced a like-minded, homogeneous citizen- 
ship. With this national system of education 
the schoolmaster will more truly than ever be- 
fore determine the destiny of the nation. 

But suppose the public schools should be- 
come completely secularized, and suppose the 
teachers should become dominantly materialis- 
tic in their view of life. Let sociology and eth- 

53 



54 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

ics become the core of the socialized curriculum 
of the secular schools and give these subjects 
a naturalistic and materialistic interpretation, 
removing all religious presuppositions from 
moral and social theory. What then would be 
the effect of a unified, national system of edu- 
cation? The answer to this question is a na- 
tional system of religious education, comple- 
menting the national system of public schools. 
In a later lecture this subject will be discussed 
at length. 

But suppose the national Secretary of Edu- 
cation and a small group of his appointees 
should arrogate to themselves the sole right to 
determine educational policies for the nation. 
The danger of bureaucratic dictation is always 
present when centralization of authority is at- 
tempted. This was the vital defect in the Prus- 
sian system of education. With bureaucracy 
came its twin sister, — state or national pater- 
nalism. It matters not how democratically an 
officer may be elected, if his office is non-demo- 
cratically administered, he is essentially auto- 
cratic. In Prussia the central bureau controlled 
the entire educational program. The people 
had no rights of initiative and teachers and su- 
pervisors were denied a voice in determining 
curriculum, program and method. There was 
no organized method of capitalizing the experi- 



PROBLEMS IN ADMINISTRATION 55 

ence of the teachers for the benefit of the na- 
tion. The reward of non-reasoned service was 
the pension system of the paternalistic state. 
The penalty was the machine-like routine of a 
metallic, inelastic school system; the inhibition 
of initiative, originality and invention on the 
part of teachers and supervisors. A standard- 
ized, machine-made program was handed down 
from the national bureau with detailed instruc- 
tions for its application. To question these di- 
rections or to suggest modification of the pro- 
gram brought administrative disfavor and 
charges of disloyalty to the government. To 
adopt this method in the United States would 
Prussianize our public school system. We 
must find some way to secure the benefits of 
centralized authority without destroying local 
or state initiative and control, and without de- 
stroying professional freedom and interest on 
the part of the teaching profession. 

1. A National Education Association Is a 
Necessary Corollary of a National System of 
Education. — The Smith-Towner Bill guaran- 
tees local initiative and control and makes im- 
possible bureaucratic dictation from Washing- 
ton. The safeguarding of professional interest, 
however, cannot be secured by legislation. A 
national educational association is a necessary 
corollary to a national system of education. 



56 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

Progressive educational administration de- 
mands a vitalized professional interest on the 
part of all teachers and officers who are a part 
of the system. Teachers and officers must be 
sentiment makers. The interests they repre- 
sent are not secure unless they have an effective 
agency of creating public opinion. The most 
democratically created machinery will soon 
grow bureaucratic and static unless the rank 
and file of the workers in the system are fur- 
nished an opportunity to grow through a par- 
ticipation in the formation of the laws they are 
to obey and execute. The academic freedom, 
which is the one necessary factor in profes- 
sional interest, demands the free association of 
teachers and officers for the consideration of 
questions pertaining to their common tasks. 
By the side of every administrative agency in 
education there should he a voluntary profes- 
sional association which guarantees the re- 
sponse of the admimistrative agency to the will 
of the people. 

The chief weakness of the National Educa- 
tion Association at the present time lies in the 
fact that it does not have active units in every 
county and city in the United States. If this 
association had 500,000 members in affiliated as- 
sociations in every part of the United States, 
its influence for good would be immeasurably 



PROBLEMS IN ADMINISTRATION 57 

increased. That the leaders of this association 
recognize the important contribution which it 
should make to a national system of education 
is seen in the present movement to increase its 
membership and set it definitely at work on the 
outstanding educational problems of the pres- 
ent national crisis. It has recently taken a very 
decided stand upon a number of important 
questions. These acts have had a profound in- 
fluence upon educational thought every^vhere. 
The need of the hour is a clearer recognition of 
the vital importance of this association and the 
enlarging of its membership until the entire 
teaching profession comes within its influence. 

2. Problems of Administration and Con- 
trol. — The nationalizing of our educational sys- 
tem makes it necessary for us to examine with 
great care the principles of educational admin- 
istration which are to be encouraged in our 
local and state units of organization. Public 
school leaders are agreed that experience in 
this field has established a few principles of or- 
ganization which may well be used as guiding 
principles in the building of an efficient school 
system. Among these principles are the fol- 
lowing : 

(a) The unit of local administration must be 
conscious of its relationship to the entire edux;a- 
tional system. 



58 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

The size of the unit of educational adminis- 
tration is a matter of great importance. The 
unit may be too small to provide adequate finan- 
cial backing and competent educational leader- 
ship. It may be too large to be practicable as 
a unit of supervision. Forty-one of the United 
States have chosen the county as the unit of 
civil government. I am of the opinion that, or- 
dinarily, the county is the logical unit for the 
administration of religious education. The ter- 
ritory covered should, of course, represent a 
homogeneous, socially united population, if pos- 
sible. 

Cities should be responsible for the fringe of 
rural territory around them. It is fatal to the 
suburbs to organize an independent city organ- 
ization and leave the remainder of the county 
without leadership. A different type of super- 
vision is, of course, necessary for rural and city 
schools. 

A leading authority on educational adminis- 
tration says, ''It is not safe to make use of any 
given unit of government unless, for the pur- 
pose in hand, the people feel themselves as in 
control of that unit." (Payson Smith, in 
''School and Society," 7:171, pp. 392, April 6, 
1918.) For standardization and stimulation 
the smaller units need the direction of larger 
state and national or international units. The 



PROBLEMS IN ADMINISTRATION 59 

power handed down must be regarded as the 
will of the people themselves, or supervision 
will be ineffective. There must be a close spir- 
itual bond between the smaller and the larger 
units. In arguing for the principle that the ad- 
ministration of education should be locally di- 
rected in accordance with formulated principles 
of our national ideals, Professor Thomas H. 
Briggs, of Teachers College, says: *'The ex- 
treme diversity of conditions and consequent 
needs in our broad land, and indeed, the genius 
of our national spirit, are opposed to any cen- 
trally determined strict uniformity. Experi- 
ence of different states has shown the unwis- 
dom on the one hand of unrestricted subsidies, 
and on the other hand, largely because it de- 
nies growth through democratic participation, 
of central decision concerning the details of 
local administration. " {" School and Society, ' ' 
7: 168, pp. 303, March 16, 1918.) 

It is now regarded as the most satisfactory 
policy to place in the hands of the national or 
state supervising body the fixing of standards, 
courses of study, qualifications of teachers and 
similar general standards, and leave for local 
administration the details of selecting teachers, 
adopting text-books, providing support, etc. 
For a state or national board to fix details, 
adopt text-books, etc., would deny the local 



60 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

teachers the opportunity of "growth through 
participation" and invite open rebellion on the 
part of local leadership. 

The discussion of this principle may be sum- 
marized as follows : 

(1) Control from above should he general, 
not specific. 

(2) No power can he handed down in the 
form of effective supervision until it has heen- 
consciously/ handed up hy people who see the 
need of overhead direction of supervision. 
(b) Any hoard of education created to pro- 
tect vested interests of any kind will he ineffec- 
tive and, in the end, detrimental to the welfare 
of the childhood of the community. 

Effective educational administration requires 
unity of purpose. Board members must be 
free to promote a common objective without 
prejudice, and without influence from a spe- 
cially interested constituency. The most effec- 
tive board is secured when each member rep- 
resents the whole school and the whole com- 
munity. 

Boards of public education should not be com- 
posed of members selected by the various po- 
litical parties, publishing and supply houses to 
represent their interests. To prevent partisan 
politics and commercial rivalry from influenc- 
ing the schools we should have a non-partisan 



PROBLEMS IN ADMINISTRATION 61 

board of education, and persons sharing in the 
profits from school books or supplies should be 
by law denied membership on such boards. 

The inside story of school book adoptions in 
many sections of the country, and the facts 
about the election of city superintendents, high 
school principals and other administrative of- 
ficers in many counties and cities is a record of 
corruption which has few parallels in the cat- 
alogue of bribery, fraud, blackmail and other 
forms of debasement. Boards of supervisors 
selected to build bridges and repair roads were 
charged with the added duty of selecting text- 
books for the schools of the county. Such 
boards were in many cases the easy victims of 
contractors and business agents of interested 
parties. Legislation designed to protect the 
children from being exploited by such methods 
has only just begun. The lobbyist is still in the 
haUs of legislature, seeking to prevent the pas- 
sage of bills that make it more difificult for 
vested interests to control the school system in 
the interests of manufacturers', builders' or 
publishers' dividends. Publicity of the actual 
facts and the demand for professional freedom 
are the correctives. They should be applied 
with vigor. 

(c) The organization of education in a com- 
munity should guarantee the academic freedom 



62 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

of the schools and promote the professional 
standards of teachers and officers. 

All political and commercial control must be 
removed from the community programs in the 
interests of academic freedom. The teachers 
must be free to carry forward through a series 
of years an uninterrupted program of educa- 
tion. The school must be judged by its prod- 
uct and teachers must be protected from po- 
litical and commercial exploitation. Trained 
educational supervisors alone should be permit- 
ted to direct the educational program. 

In the selection of text-books it should be 
conceded without debate that the teachers 
should have a voice in the section of the books 
they are to use ; that educational experts should 
guide teachers in the selection; that boards 
should adopt no books not approved by trained 
educators ; that book publishers and lesson writ- 
ers should be excluded from all boards charged 
with the duty of selecting text-books, and that 
merit and not the pubhsher's imprint should 
be the basis of selection. 

(d) The organization which is responsible 
for the educational program of a community 
should also he responsible for the financial sup- 
port of the educational system. 

In many New England cities the municipal- 
ity levies the school tax and the school board ex- 



DIAGRAM N9]r 



People of the City 

electing 
1 



Board of Supervisors 
(City Council) 



MAYOR 



wf)o appoints 



Board of 
Public Works 



Superintendent 
of Schools 



Board of Education 

(4 full-time employees) 

wli6 




Other City Boards 
controlling 




AN ESPECUUXY BAD FORM OF EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION 
This form of educational organization has existed in the city of San Francisco since 1900 



From Cubherley, PubUo School AdministraUon. Permuaion of Houghton 
Mifflin Co. 

Diagram V 
63 



PROBLEMS IN ADMINISTRATION 65 

pends the money. School funds are made the 
basis of political contests, and school appropria- 
tions are reduced to satisfy tax-payers, leaving 
the board of education without the ability to 
give the conununity the kind of a school system 
its children should have. After a hard struggle, 
Boston has broken away from this system, and 
the board of education has been given the power 
to levy school taxes within limits fixed by law. 
Under this arrangement the school board knows 
what it can do through a series of years. It is 
answerable to the people for the educational 
program and for the annual school budget, as 
well. 

(e) The school system of a commimity 
should rest upon the people directly. 

It should not be administered by a sub-com- 
mittee of the chamber of commerce or by com- 
mittees appointed by mayors or other executive 
oflScers or boards. Chicago, San Francisco, 
Buffalo and other cities might be cited as cities 
whose school systems have suffered untold in- 
jury because of an unfortunate organization 
which made maladministration inevitable and 
which made scientific educational work in the 
schools impossible. Diagram V shows the 
organization of the school system in San Fran- 
cisco. It represents an undesirable form of or- 
ganization for a public school system. 



66 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

(f ) The most efficient administration is se- 
cured through a small hoard which acts as a 
committee of the whole on all matters rather 
than through large hoards wording through 
sub-committees. 

(g) The hoard of education should exercise 
legislative powers only. 

It should approve policies and programs 
initiated by educational experts who are em- 
ployed to study the local field and make recom- 
mendations. Executive functions should be 
left exclusively to the employed specialists, who 
should be selected with special reference to their 
ability to perform specific types of work. 

Diagram VI is an example of a city system 
of schools organized in harmony with the 
foregoing principles. 

The successful operation of a national system 
of education demands (1) the preservation of 
local initiative and control by means of legis- 
lation; (2) the development of a nation-wide 
professional interest by means of a national ed- 
ucation association and (3) the rigid applica- 
tion to all educational organizations and boards 
of certain fundamental principles of organiza- 
tion and administration which experience has 
shown to be essential to the most efficient school 
work. 




67 



CHAPTER IV 

A NATIONAL. SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

There are three possible methods of teach- 
ing religion to the American people : First, hy 
introducing religion into the curriculum of the 
public schools. Various attempts have been 
made to solve the problem by this method, but 
all have been found inadequate. It is a settled 
conviction of the American people that religion 
cannot be taught in the public schools without 
doing violence to the principle of the complete 
separation of church and state. 

Second, hy withdrawing our children from 
the public schools and placing them in parochial 
schools maintained hy the various denomina- 
tions. If all religious boards should adopt the 
parochial school method, the public schools 
would be destroyed and there would be no place 
in which our people could receive the common 
ideas, skills, attitudes and ideals necessary for 
the social solidarity of our democracy. The 
universal adoption of the parochial school sys- 
tem would, in the end, disrupt our democracy. 

69 



70 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

Third, hy erecting a system of church schools, 
extending from our Christian homes to ow 
graduate schools of religion. These schools 
would complement and supplement the public 
schools and in no way become a competing 
school system. 

The first plan is inadequate and imprac- 
ticable; the second plan is unpatriotic and un- 
democratic; the third plan provides the only de- 
fensible method for the religious education of 
the American people. We must either adopt it 
or permit our citizens to go without adequate 
religious instruction and training. 

If religion is to be taught, under church aus- 
pices, in our homes, our churches and our com- 
munities, and if all ages from infancy to matu- 
rity are to receive such training and instruction, 
we must find some way to organize, systematize 
and administer such instruction and training. 
When we have done this, we wiU have a system 
of religious schools paralleling the public 
schools. The creation of such a system of 
schools is the greatest immediate task before 
the Protestant churches of this country. 

In this chapter we are to consider the forms 
of organization which would be appropriate for 
such a system of religious schools. In general, 
it may be said the principles of educational or- 
ganization and administration which have been 



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A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 73 

found necessary in secular education will be 
found most satisfactory in religious education. 
The one new factor which appears in this field 
is the presence of many religious denomina- 
tions, each justly claiming the right to direct the 
religious training of its own constituents. In 
creating a national system of religious educa- 
tion we must find a way to preserve denomina- 
tional initiative and control, as well as local 
initiative and control. This will make neces- 
sary interdenominational organization for the 
control of common enterprises, and denomina- 
tional organizations for the direction of the spe- 
cial interests of the various religious bodies. 

1. Denominational. Educational Maohin- 
EEY. — A critical study of denominational educa- 
tional machinery will reveal the fact that there 
has been very little educational statesmanship 
on the part of denominational leaders. Spas- 
modic educational enterprises, springing up to 
meet certain apparent needs, have crystallized 
into static organizations which are not easily co- 
ordinated with the rest of the educational ma- 
chinery of the church. Modification and read- 
justment will of necessity be gradual. The 
transition may not be painless or noiseless. It 
should be accomplished in the presence of a 
statesmanlike program which will justify and 
determine every change. 



74 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

Diagram VII illustrates one of the most 
common forms of denominational organization. 
Organizations of this type sprang np from the 
denominational publishing interests. The 
Board of Publications created a Sunday school 
department. The educational secretary and 
his staff are employees of the publishing soci- 
ety. They are sent out into the churches to 
carry the educational ideals represented by the 
publications of the denominations. The con- 
trol in such cases rests in the hands of the de- 
nominational publishing agent. The colleges 
and other institutions of higher learning are or- 
ganized under an independent Church Board. 
Sometimes the publishing society organizes a 
separate Young People's Department, coordi- 
nated with the Sunday School Board. Some- 
times this department is created by the National 
Conference or Convention of the denomina- 
tion. Diagram VTII shows a similar form 
of organization in which the Sunday School 
Board is created by the Home Missionary 
Board. Both of these plans (1) project a di- 
vided educational program into the local 
church, (2) recognize a breach between elemen- 
tary and higher education, which is unfortu- 
nate, (3) place the direction of education in the 
hands of a Board which is not primarily re- 
sponsible for educational work, (4) subject the 



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A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 77 

interests of the elementary schools to the po- 
litical and commercial combinations which grow 
out of the complicated interrelationships of 
overhead boards which have no primal respon- 
sibility for education. These two diagrams, 
VII and Vin, are comparable io Diagram 
V, which shows the unfortunate organization of 
the school system of San Francisco. 

With such forms of organization there are, 
under the best management, conditions that 
make aggressive and constructive educational 
work extremely difficult. Under poor manage- 
ment, disaster is inevitable. When the newer 
problems of week-day and vacation schools are 
added to the Sunday schools, these forms of or- 
ganizations will give increased evidence of 
their inefficiency. The conditions of fail- 
ure are in the form of organization. Change 
of - secretaries and managers does not cure 
the disease. Diagram IX shows the com- 
plicated forms of organization which some- 
times result from the use of the plans shown 
in Diagrams VII and VIII. These plans are 
the rule, rather than the exception. This fact 
indicates the tasks of reorganization which 
face the churches if they are to carry well their 
part of a national program of religious educa- 
tion. 

Under the forms of organization represented 



78 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

by Diagrams VII, VIII and IX, it will be im- 
possible for the clmrch to develop a great edu- 
cational program. Men and women with edu- 
cational vision, technical skill and professional 
ideals will not be attracted to a system in which 
their talents and ideals are subordinated to com- 
mercial and missionary interests. Unless the 
church can assure its educators academic free- 
dom and a professional opportunity on a par 
with that offered in secular education, medi- 
cine, theology, law or the other learned profes- 
sions, it will be doomed to a mediocre educa- 
tional leadership. Men and women of out- 
standing ability will not waste their days try- 
ing to institute an educational program, as the 
under secretaries of other men who are not pro- 
fessionally competent to supervise them and 
whose major interest is not education. If the 
church is to develop great religious educators, 
it must furnish the conditions which will at- 
tract the strongest men and women of the coun- 
try to this field of service. 

Diagram X shows an organization of the 
newer type. There is evidence that several of 
the denominations are consciously attempting 
to adopt this form of organization. In this 
form the Board of Education is one of the va- 
rious coordinate boards of the church, deriving 
its authority direct from the General Confer- 



A SYSTEM OP RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 81 

ence, Synod or Convention. It is co-equal with 
the other general boards of the church. Its au- 
thority and its resources are from the highest 
national body, and its responsibility is to that 
body and to no one else. This Board of Edu- 
cation is responsible for all the educational 
work of the denomination. It coordinates the 
Young People's work; it administers elemen- 
tary schools and schools of higher learning; it 
sends down to the local church a unified edu- 
cational program. In the local church there is 
a Committee on Education which is the local 
school board. This local board selects the di- 
rector of education, who in turn nominates the 
teachers and officers and recommends a pro- 
gram for the local church. This program is 
administered by principals of departments, as- 
sisted by supervisors and special secretaries. 
The principals reach the children through class 
teachers and leaders of coordinated clubs and 
societies. This diagram shows, roughly, how 
the educational program of the denomination 
would reach the children in the local church. 
This plan compares favorably with the plan 
shown in Diagram VI. 

2. Provision for Professional Growth. — ^In 
this closely knit organization there is the possi- 
bility of bureaucratic control or secretarial dic- 
tation. Just the moment that administrative 



82 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

disapproval attaches to local initiative, inven- 
tion and originality ; just the moment that there 
ceases to be a place for professional growth 
through participation in the building of stand- 
ards and programs — at that moment the sys- 
tem has been Prussianized. There must, 
therefore, be in every denominational educa- 
tional organization an open forum for free dis- 
cussion, and a regularly recognized avenue by 
which the voice of the teachers and officers can 
be conveyed to the overhead officials without 
recourse to rebellion, insubordination or any 
other drastic method of procedure. In the 
local church there will be the council of teach- 
ers, officers and parents. This is the local unit 
in the denominational religious education as- 
sociation. Provision must be made for this 
prophetic element to permeate the entire de- 
nominational organization. 

3. Intekdenominational Cooperation in 
Eeligioxjs Education. — It is self-evident that 
there are types of work which can best be done 
by the cooperative effort of all denominations. 
After ten years' experimentation with various 
forms of interdenominational organization, I 
wish to report a successful demonstration of 
community cooperation in religious education. 
This experiment is now widely known as the 
''Maiden Plan." Maiden is a suburb of Bos- 



A STANDARD ORGANIZATION FOR REUGIOUS EDUCATION 

IN A REUaOUS DENOMINATION 



GENERAL CONVENTION, 
Conference, Synod, Etc. 




OEMSTMEMT Of 

MO SEOIHSMV 
EDUCATICK 



LOCAL CHURCH 



TDUfMtll — S(CDtT«J<Y 




Diagram X 
83 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 85 

ton. Its population consists of 23,000 Protes- 
tants, 17,000 Catholics and 11,000 Jews. It is 
an industrial suburb with seventeen Protestant 
churches. The Maiden Plan is confessedly a 
Protestant enterprise. The organization is as 
follows, as shown in Diagram XI: 

(a) The Maiden Council of Religious Edu- 
cation. — Any Christian citizen who is willing to 
cooperate in the building of a program of re- 
ligious education for the community is eligible 
to membership in this Council. It is a volun- 
tary association of citizens to achieve a common 
object. The Maiden Council has defined its ob- 
jects as follows : 

(1) The development of a city system of re- 
ligious education. 

(2) The unification of all child welfare agen- 
cies of the city in the interests of the greatest 
efficiency. 

(3) The supervision of a complete religious 
census of the city with special reference to the 
religious needs of children and young people. 

(4) The direction of educational, industrial 
and social surveys for the purpose of securing 
the facts upon which a constructive community 
program can be based. 

(5) The creation of a community conscious- 
ness on matters of moral and religious educa- 
tion. 



86 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

The Council is a permanent, non-denomina- 
tional organization, devoted to the moral and 
religious welfare of the city. It is supported 
by voluntary contributions of citizens, just as 
they support libraries, hospitals and other 
philanthropic institutions. The budget for the 
current year is $9,225.00. 

(b) Th& Board of Directors. — ^When a com- 
munity council incorporates under the laws of 
the state, it will have a Board of Directors 
through which it will carry on the work of the 
corporation. An unincorporated body wiU ore- 
ate an executive committee for the same pur- 
pose. This board is, in fact, a City Board of 
Religious Education. Its functions are legisla- 
tive and advisory. The execution of its policies 
is in the hands of trained specialists. The Mai- 
den Board is incorporated. 

(c) The Superintendent of Religious Edur 
cation. — This officer is the educational expert 
employed by the Board of Directors to guide it 
in the solution of the technical problems which 
are involved in a community program of re- 
ligious education. The position is comparable 
to that of the city superintendency of public 
schools. 

(d) Commissions for the Study of Com- 
munity Problems. — The Council organizes its 
members into commissions for the study of com- 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 87 

munity problems. These commissions report 
their findings to the Council. The meetings of 
the Council are largely devoted to the open 
forum discussion of the recommendations of its 
own commissions. Maiden has four commis- 
sions as follows: 

(1) Commission on Community Music, 
Pageantry and Art. 

(2) Commission on Surveys. 

(3) Commission on Week-day and Vacation 
Bible Schools. 

(4) Commission on the Eelation of Public, 
Church, Synagogue and Parochial Schools. 

(e) The Superintendent's Cabinet. — This is 
the staff of experts who serve as heads of de- 
partments under the direction of the City Su- 
perintendent of Keligious Education. 

When a problem is in the stage of inquiry 
and investigation, it is in the hands of the Coun- 
cil and its special commissions. When, after 
careful study, the Council decides to inaugurate 
any type of religious activity in the community, 
it places the responsibility for the execution of 
the work in the hands of specialists employed 
because of their special fitness for the service 
they are to render. 

The following are the activities inaugurated 
or authorized by the Council : 



88 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

I. A Peogeam of Community Music, Pa- 
GEANTEY AND Aet. — An Gxpeit is employed to di- 
rect the city in the development of community 
music, pageantry and art. Community chor- 
uses are organized, public concerts held, coop- 
erative programs, involving all churches and 
all sections of the city, are directed. The An- 
nual Community Christmas Tree, with a unique 
program involving thousands of citizens, is un- 
der the direction of the Council of Religious 
Education. The musical and art resources of 
the city are discovered and the community is 
taught to appreciate more fully the great spir- 
itual lessons which have been expressed in 
musical form, in architecture and in great paint- 
ings. The program for 1919-1920 is as fol- 
lows : 

PEOGRAM FOR 1919-1920 

(a) Community Singing: 
(1) Mass Singing: 

(a) Mass singing at public meetings. 

(b) Mass singing in the churches. 

(c) Mass singing at all Festival 

Chorus concerts. 
{2) Commmiity or Festival Chorus: 

(a) Girls, 8 to 14 years. Tuesdays at 

4:00 P.M. 

(b) Boys, 8 to 14 years. Tuesdays at 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 89 

5:00 P.M. 

(c) High School Chorus. Tuesdays at 

7:30 P.M. 

(d) Adult Chorus. Tuesdays at 7 :30 

P.M. 
Special club and choir singers will cooper- 
ate at final rehearsals and public programs. 

(b) Pageantry: 

(1) Commimity Pageantry: 

(a) Christmas Tree and Masque at 

Maiden Square. 

(b) May or early June Festival, 
\ showing 

1. Maiden's religious history. 

2. Maiden's Melting Pot and 

Americanization Program. 

3. Maiden's Holy City. 

(2) Church Pageantry: 

(a) Christmas pageants. 

(b) Easter pageants. 

(c) Children's Week pageant. 

(d) Other special day and special 

week pageants. 

(c) Art, Picture, Window, Slide, Architec- 
ture, Symbolism: 

(1) Lectures on the architecture, art win- 
dows and symbolism in Mai- 
den's churches and public 
buildings. 



90 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

(2) Study of art pictures on church and 

Sunday school walls. 

(3) Stereopticon and Hymn Half -Hours: 

(a) Assembly Period of Maiden School 

of Eeligious Education. 

(b) Sunday nights in churches. 

(c) Before-Christmas-week program. 

(d) Passion Week. 

(4) Exhibit of religious art in Maiden Pub- 

lic Library. 

OBJECTIVES FOR 1919-1920 

(a) Evaluation of worship at assembly pe- 
riod of Maiden School of Religious Education. 

(b) Encouragement of home singing. 

(c) Encouragement of the writing of orig- 
inal Maiden songs, hymns and pageants by 
Maiden citizens. 

(d) The discovery and coordination of Mai- 
den's musical resources through the Survey 
Department and the Conamission on Com- 
munity Music, Pageantry and Art. 

(e) The organization of Industrial-Factory- 
Singing groups and other musical activities. 

(f ) The maintaining of high musical ideals : 

1. Mass singing of Hallelujah Chorus, 

Largo, How Lovely Appear (with 
slides). 

2. Mass singing with art slides. 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 91 

3. Chorus singing — Cantata or Oratorio, 
Part Song Concert, Pageant Music. 

SCHEDULE OF PRINCIPAL PUBLIC 
PROGRAMS 

Tuesday, November 11th, Armistice Day Con- 
cert and Celebration. 

Sunday night, December 14th, Sunday School 
Pageant. 

Sunday afternoon or evening, December 21st, 
Sunday School Pageant. 

Monday evening, December 22nd, Community 
Christmas Tree and Masque on Maiden 
Square. 

Wednesday, February 18th, Ash Wednesday, 
Stereopticon slides and songs. Life of 
Christ with Community Chorus. 

Sunday, April 4th, Easter Sunday, Church 
Pageants. 

Monday, May 31st, Tercentenary celebration or 
Maiden Festival. 

II. Public Lectures. — Each year a series of 
public lectures will be given for the purpose of 
bringing the Council's program to the atten- 
tion of the citizens of the city. 

III. Conferences and Conventions of Local 
Teachers. — In harmony with the theory of edu- 
cational administration advocated in Chapter 



92 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

III, the Council has encouraged the organiza- 
tion of what, in fact, is a professional religious 
education association. Three times each year 
the teachers and officers assemble under their 
own leadership with programs prepared by 
themselves based on their own needs and in- 
terests. Through these conferences there is 
being developed a profe,ssional spirit which is 
already being felt in the religious life of the 
city. These professional conferences will be 
continued as a necessary corollary to an effi- 
cient city system of religious education. 

IV. Department of Surveys. — Under the di- 
rection of the Maiden Council of Eeligious 
Education a very exhaustive survey is being 
made of all those factors in the life of the city 
which influence morality and religion. The 
survey is undertaken from the viewpoint of 
the church. The churches do not regard them- 
selves as parasites living on and consuming the 
life of the people ; they are active, constructive 
agencies creating values essential to the life 
of all the people. As community builders the 
churches are seeking through careful surveys 
the facts upon which to base their programs of 
parish and community work. 

To be of the largest value a survey should 
cover a considerable period of time and be 
remedial rather than merely diagnostic. This 



A SYSTEM OP RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 93 

survey is of the remedial type. From time to 
time the results will be published for public 
information. Constructive suggestions for im- 
provement will be presented and the community 
itself will be given an opportunity to create its 
own policies and programs in the light of all 
the facts available. In a permanent Survey 
Department the Council will have the ma- 
chinery for constant measurement, evaluation 
and correction. Progress will be accurately 
recorded from year to year, all programs 
will be based on facts and processes will be 
scientifically determined. A commission on 
Surveys will be a permanent feature of the or- 
ganization of the Council. 

The following surveys are just being com- 
pleted : 

(a) A Population Census covering every 
house in Maiden. 

(b) A Social Survey covering playgrounds, 
theaters and amusement houses, poolrooms, so- 
cial centers, juvenile delinquency, etc. 

(c) An Industrial Survey showing occupa- 
tions, wages, working conditions, etc. 

(d) A Religious Education Survey, includ- 
ing the local church schools and community 
agencies. 

(e) Local Church Surveys, including all de- 
partments of each church in the city. 



94 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

V. Obganizations op Boys and Giels and 
Young People. — The development of com- 
munity organizations of boys and girls and 
young people. 

VI. Training School for Keligious Leaders. 
— The Maiden School of Religious Education 
is a high grade evening school for the training 
of religious leaders for Maiden and vicinity. 
The school opened its fourth year October 7, 
1919, with a carefully selected faculty of ex- 
perts and with a curriculum rich in religious 
and educational content, broad in the scope of 
interests represented and intensely practical in 
its organization and ultimate purpose. 

The courses of instruction are arranged in 
three groups, namely: Biblical, Departmental 
and General. Students are required to pre- 
serve a proper balance of theoretical, practi- 
cal and general cultural courses. Three years 
of twenty-four weeks each are required to com- 
plete the prescribed course of study. 

This is essentially a school of religion. Its 
graduates dedicate themselves to a spiritual 
ministry. As religious teachers and leaders 
they become efficient laymen who make possi- 
ble the building of really great churches in the 
community. Some graduates of this school will 
become professional workers in the field of re- 
ligious education, but it is expected that most 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 95 

of the students "will go back into the local 
churches of the community, projpared to do 
more effectively the work of voluntary lay 
leaders. ''Every layman an efficient layman," 
is the ideal of this school. To this end it in- 
vites the patronage of all the churches of the 
city. 

VII. Week-Day and Vacation Bible Schooi^. 
— The Council has authorized the inauguration 
of week-day religious schools. Curricula and a 
teaching force are being developed and within 
a short time a beginning will be made in this 
field. 

Without a single exception all of the Prot- 
estant churches cooperate in the development 
of this city system of religious education. Each 
denomination conducts its own educational pro- 
gram in its own church. All strictly denomina- 
tional interests are cared for in the local 
churches. Those things which can be done with 
best results by cooperative efforts are placed in 
the hands of the City Council of Religious Edu- 
cation. The community studies its own local 
problems and determines its own local program. 

4. Christian Citizenship the Basis of Local 
Control. — In another connection I have pleaded 
for the academic and professional freedom of 
the educators of religious bodies. I have in- 
sisted that it is unwise for a denomination to 



96 lA NATIONAL SYSTEM OP EDUCATION 

conduct its educational work through commit- 
tees that are subsidiary to other denomina- 
tional boards. So long as a denomination 
permits its educational work to be carried as 
a side line hy any hoard, just so long will edu- 
cation in that denomination be a rear-line and 
not a front-line enterprise. 

This same principle holds true in the opera- 
tion of a community program of religious edu- 
cation. Disastrous results have attended 
various attempts to operate community pro- 
grams of religious education under the direc- 
tion of sub-committees of the local ministerial 
association, the Federation of Churches, or 
some similar organization. This plan vio- 
lates every known principle of educational ad- 
ministration. It would be as reasonable to 
expect the public schools to be operated by 
a sub-committee of the Chamber of Commerce 
as to expect a system of church schools to be 
operated by a sub-committee of any other com- 
munity organization. 

The plan fails to recognize that religious edu- 
cation deals with immaturity ; that a specialized 
technique is required, which differs absolutely 
from the other forms of interchurch coopera- 
tion. Besides this, the religious school system 
is sure to inherit all the quarrels and feel the 
pressure of all the spasms of adult church 



A SYSTEM OP RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 97 

effort which the other organizations promote. 
The consistent, uninterrupted progress of 
Christian nurture through a series of years is 
not possible under this system of control. 

Just as the Chamber of Commerce insists 
that public schools rest upon an independent 
foundation and receives as a product an en- 
lightened citizenship to reenforce all business 
and political organizations of the city, so should 
the Federation of Churches of a com- 
munity set the community system of religious 
education on an independent foundation and 
expect to receive from it an efficient Christian 
citizenship to reenforce all churches and to 
spiritualize all civic and commercial life. 

The Citizenship Plan recognizes that there 
are denominational ideals and interests which 
the various religious bodies wish to preserve. 
It places the promotion of these family affairs 
in the hands of the denominational agencies and 
does not permit the community organization to 
interfere with them. Each church teaches its 
own special doctrines, history and ideals in its 
own way and by the use of its own denomina- 
tional machinery. The community organization 
has no more desire to interfere with this de- 
nominational emphasis in local churches than 
a municipality would desire to prevent the de- 



98 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

velopment of f ainily loyalties within the house- 
holds of the community. 

The Citizenship Plan does not desire to build 
an intangible something, known as a ''Com- 
munity Church,*' of the social settlement 
variety, as a substitute for the various churches 
already established in the community. The 
advocates of the Citizenship Plan believe in 
the church; they do not seek a substitute for 
it. They seek to save the community by build- 
ing up the churches of the community. AH 
the product of a community system of religious 
education will be turned back into the churches 
of the community, just as the product of the 
public schools is turned back into the political 
parties of the community. 

Throughout this chapter I have attempted to 
apply to the field of religious education the 
three principles set forth in Chapter III, 
namely: (1) The preservation of local initiative 
and control hy means of legislation; (2) the de- 
velopment of a nation-wide professional inter- 
est hy means of a national education associa- 
tion, and (3) the rigid application to all educa- 
tional organizations and hoards of certain 
fundamental principles of organisation and ad- 
ministration which experience has shourn to he 
essential fo the most efficient school work. 



CHAPTER V 

A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION {Cofl- 

tinued) 

Every local church school sustains a dual 
relationship. It has a family relationship to 
the religious denomination of which it is a part, 
and a territorial relationship to the community 
for whose religious education it has a joint re- 
sponsibility with church schools of other re- 
ligious bodies. In Chapter IV an effort was 
made to set forth the principles which should 
be used in organizing denominational and in- 
terdenominational systems of religious schools. 
It is my purpose in this chapter (1) to show 
how denominational and non- or interdenomina- 
tional agencies can be satisfactorily correlated, 
and (2) to show how a national system of pub- 
lic schools and a national system of religious 
schools can be coordinated into an efficient na- 
tional system of education without endanger- 
ing our political freedom or our religious 
liberty. 

99 



100 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

1. COOEDINATION OF DENOMINATIONAL AND 

Interdenominational, Machinery. — Diagram 
XII will show in a graphic manner the inter- 
relationship of denominational and interde- 



Diagbam XI. Organization of the Malden System 
OP Eeligious Education 

1. Maiden Council of Eeligious Education. 

2. Board of Directors. 

3. City Superintendent of Eeligious Education. 

4. Commissions for the Study of Community Prob- 

lems. 

5. Cabinet, consisting of Executive Heads of De- 

partments. 

6. Commission on Community Music, Pageantry 

and Art. 

7. Commission on Surveys. 

8. Commission on Week-Day and Vacation Bible 

Schools. 

9. Commission on Eelationships of Public, Church, 

Synagogue and Parochial Schools. 

10. Department of Community Music, Pageantry 

and Art. 

11. Department of Public Lectures. 

12. Professional Teachers' Association. 

13. Department of Surveys. 

14. Organizations of Boys and Girls and Young 

People. 

15. Training School for Eeligious Leaders. 

16. Week-Day and Vacation Bible Schools. 



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A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 103 

nominational organizations. In the same com- 
munity there are churches (a and b) of differ- 
ent denominations. Each church is attached to 
its own National Conference, Convention, 
Synod, etc., through state or district and na- 
tional educational hoards. Members of 
churches (a) and (b), finding that they have 
certain common problems and common needs 
which can best be solved or met by federating 
their resources, unite in a local community 
council of religious education (c, also Diagram 
XI). When it becomes evident that the inter- 
ests of neighboring communities can be best 
served by creating an overhead state and na- 
tional association for purposes of standardiza- 
tion and unification, the local council will send 
delegates to a state council (d). In recognition 
of the interests which the various denomina- 
tional boards have in the local community, they 
may properly be allowed to have representa- 
tion on the controlling committee of the state 
council. In like manner, the state organizations 
would send delegates to form a national inter- 
denominational board (e) to which there may 
be added members to represent the various de- 
nominational boards. (The proposed reorgani- 
zation of the International Sunday School 
Association provides for equal denominational 



104 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

and territorial representation on state and na^ 
tional executive committees.); 

The arrows running upward indicate tliat tlie 
delegates will carry from the lower to the 
higher bodies the fresh experiences of the 
workers who are doing the practical work in 
local churches and communities. The arrow 
mnning downward indicates that there will be 
administered from above only those general 
regulations which have been consciously handed 
up by the lower bodies. ( See Principle a, Chap- 
ter III.) 

In the same community in which churches 
(a) and (b) are located, there is located, be- 
sides a Community Council of Religious Edu- 
cation, a professional religious education 
association composed of all members of the 
community who are actively engaged in the 
work of religious education as voluntary or 
professional workers. [See (1), Chapter HI 
and (b). Chapter IV.] This local, professional 
association will affiliate itself with other local 
organizations of like nature through a state 
religious education association. The various 
state units will unite to form a national re- 
ligious education association. This national 
religious education association, with its various 
state and local units, will permeate every sec- 
tion of the nation and include in its member- 



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A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 107 

ship millions of members. Through this ma- 
chinery there will be found the correctives 
which will prevent denominational or interde- 
nominational machinery from growing static 
and bureaucratic. 

In this same community there is the public 
school with its state and national administra- 
tive contacts, and by the side of this public 
school system, there is the voluntary teachers' 
association and the voluntary parent-teachers' 
association with state and national connections. 

2. The Coordination of a National System 
OF Public Schools with a National System of 
Religious Schools. — The principle of the com- 
plete separation of church and state places 
upon the educators of our country the task of 
finding a way of preserving the unity of the 
educative process and at the same time main- 
taining a dual system of organization and sup- 
port. Diagram XIII presents a plan for 
coordinating the work of church-supported and 
tax-supported schools. The four columns on 
the left of the shaded column in the center of 
the diagram represent the organization of the 
public school system which was discussed in 
Chapter 11. Column one (1) represents the 
system of schools for the masses, extending 
from the elementary schools upward to the 
graduate, professional and technical schools. 



108 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

Column two (2) represents the schools designed 
for the training of the teachers for the schools 
for the masses. Column three (3) represents the 
system of supervision extending from the village 
principal upward to the Secretary of Educa- 
tion in the president's cabinet. Column four 
(4) represents the professional educational as- 
sociations and the parent-teachers ' associations 
that are the necessary corollaries of a national 
system of public schools. 

On the right-hand side of the diagram there 
is shown the four elements which will enter into 
a national system of church schools. Column 
one (1') represents the religious schools for the 
masses. This system of church schools will in- 
clude elementary and secondary schools which 
will hold week-day and Sunday sessions. The 
local community will also conduct classes for 
adults, including courses in parent-training, 
Bible study and local church administration. 

Above the elementary schools there will be 
the Junior and Senior Church colleges. These 
colleges will rest upon the secondary church 
schools. They now, for the most part, rest upon 
the public secondary schools and ignore the 
elementary and secondary instruction given in 
churches. In the future these church colleges 
may be expected to take account of the week- 
day and Sunday instruction given in the church 



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109 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 111 

schools. Church colleges should employ inspec- 
tors to go from local church to local church for 
the purpose of supervising and standardizing 
the work being done in elementary and secon- 
dary schools and accrediting these schools to 
the church colleges, just as state universities 
employ high school inspectors to visit and ac- 
credit public high schools. Above the church 
colleges will be the graduate schools of religion 
for research and for professional training. 
This system of schools for the masses is being 
gradually unified. Its leaders are visualizing 
the common task and there are evidences of a 
very rapid development in the form and struc- 
ture of each element in this system of church 
schools. 

Column two (2') represents a system of 
teacher-training for the church schools of all 
grades. The training of teachers is an aca- 
demic task which cannot be well performed by 
administrative and supervising agencies. In 
the past the denominational and interdenomi- 
national promotion agencies have been com- 
pelled to attempt the stupendous task of train- 
ing teachers for the religious schools of the 
nation. The meager results which have at- 
tended such efforts might have been expected, 
for these administrators had neither the re- 
sources nor the technical knowledge with which 



112 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OP EDUCATION 

to do an educational task requiring the most 
highly specialized technique. The training of 
teachers of religion for the church is one of 
the primal responsibilities of the church col- 
lege. Through the organization of departments 
of religious education these institutions should 
establish teacher-training courses in the local 
churches of the territory contributing to the 
institution. These courses should be super- 
vised and standardized by college authorities 
and suitable academic credit given for the 
courses completed. It is my conviction 
that all denominational and interdenomina- 
tional teacher-training work should be stand- 
ardized and supervised by church colleges. 
Only the promotion of such courses or schools 
should be in the hands of administrative 
agencies. 

Column three (3') represents the dual super- 
vision of denominational and interdenomina- 
tional agencies discussed in the first part of this 
chapter. This system of supervision should be 
liberally supported. No special appeal will be 
necessary to secure adequate support for de- 
nominational supervision, but the need for in- 
terdenominational supervision is not so ap- 
parent, and there is great need of wide publicity 
in behalf of this type of supervision. Just as 
there is a place for large subsidies to equalize 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 113 

the educational opportunity in secular fields, so 
there is equal need of large grants to equalize 
the opportunity for religious instruction in the 
waste places, and the congested, neglected and 
polyglot centers of population. A common car- 
rier is the only economical and efficient agency 
through which the churches can do this com- 
mon task. 

Column four (4') represents the national pro- 
fessional association which will guarantee the 
democracy and the progressive development of 
the whole system of church schools. 

3. The Necessity for Fusion of Oureicula. 
— The subject-matter and the discipline fur- 
nished by the tax-supported schools will issue in 
behavior. If the curriculum of the church school 
is to determine the conduct of our people, it 
must not neglect the content of the curriculum 
of the public schools. The curriculum for our 
church schools should be constructed with a full 
recognition of the work which is being given in 
corresponding grades in the public schools. 
Courses in map making and in geography in the 
Intermediate grades of the public school should 
be met with work in Biblical geography in the 
church school. Courses in Greek, Roman, As- 
syrian and Babylonian history in the high 
school should be carried over into the church 
school and woven into the history and litera- 



114 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

ture of the Bible. It is possible to secure essen- 
tial unity of the two systems of instruction 
without uniting the systems of administration 
or support. 

4. Eelation op Pbotestant, Jewish and 
Catholic Schools to the Public Schools. — ^It 
is the duty of all religious bodies to send their 
children to the public schools and to support 
these schools with such liberality that they will 
be able to give to our citizenship the common 
elements necessary to guarantee the social soli- 
darity of our democracy. Diagram XIII 
shows how any church may coordinate its 
schools with those of the state. It also shows 
how a group of denominations may cooperate 
in maintaining a system of church schools which 
will cooperate with the public schools. The de- 
nomination which cannot unite with its religious 
neighbors in conducting an adequate system of 
schools for its children is under obligation to 
build its own schools and operate them in such 
relation to the public schools that their children 
can attend both systems. 

It is not expected that the Protestant, Jewish 
and Catholic Churches will, in the near future, 
be able to operate a common system of religious 
schools. It has already been demonstrated, 
however, that the largest branches of the Prot- 
estant Church can agree upon a common cur- 




> 



116 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 117 

riculum for week-day religious schools, reserv- 
ing certain special denominational instruction 
for the Sunday session of their local church 
schools. Diagram XIV suggests the relation- 
ship which the public schools should hold to the 
three dominant religious groups. Democracy 
has a right, in the interest of its own perpetu- 
ity, to compel this form of cooperation of its 
schools with the schools of all religious bodies. 

When this form of cooperation becomes ef- 
fective, the teachers employed in the public 
schools will be the product of the dual system 
of training. So also will the teachers in the 
church schools be the product of state and 
church institutions. 

5. Leadership. — The building of this dual 
system of schools for the United States of 
America will demand unprecedented sums of 
money and undreamed of numbers of tech- 
nically trained men and women, but it will pro- 
duce a people which can lead the nations of the 
world in the pursuits of happiness and univer- 
sal peace. A conservative estimate of the num- 
ber of professionally trained college graduates 
that will be demanded by the church schools 
during the next five years is one hundred thou- 
sand. To supply this demand will tax the re- 
sources of all the institutions of training to 
their full capacity. 



118 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

6. SuMMABY. (a) Universal education is 
the only guarantee of democratic government. 
— The fundamental elements of a nation's 
strength are the intelligence and moral insight 
of its people. The democratic state has estab- 
lished the machinery for the administration of 
justice and equal rights, and for the transmis- 
sion of intellectual and vocational values to pos- 
terity. Local governments are kept close to the 
people and voluntary associations are active 
agents in preventing maladministration and 
initiating new and better methods for promot- 
ing the well-being of society. The machinery 
with which a democracy sets each new genera- 
tion on the shoulders of the race aiid thus per- 
petuates the intellectual, vocational and social 
achievements of the race is the public school 
system. Compulsory attendance laws and an 
enlightened public sentiment bring the children 
and the schools together, and a continuity of 
national and racial achievement is secured. 
The democratic state has the machinery to guar- 
antee to the future an intelligent and indus- 
trially efficient citizenship. 

Through the public schools the state secures 
an efficient, socially-minded, homogeneous citi- 
zenship. It develops common skills, common 
ideals and common attitudes. Its curriculum, 
besides providing for individual needs, contains 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 119 

common elements which become the basis of the 
likemindedness of the people and insures united 
and collective activity. It is thus that social 
solidarity is secured in a democracy. 

(b) The present emiergency in Amencan ed- 
ucation constitutes a national crisis. — The ef- 
fect of the war on the public schools has been 
the withdrawal of teachers in ever increasing 
numbers, the falling off of the enrollment of the 
normal schools and other institutions for the 
preparation of teachers, the shortening of 
courses and the lowering of standards, and the 
growing difficulty of securing adequate reve- 
nues through the forms of taxation upon which 
the public schools have depended for support. 

The World War revealed many defects in our 
educational system. It has clearly sho^vn the 
importance of rural education, the necessity for 
a complete program of physical and health ed- 
ucation, the need of radical measures to reduce 
adult illiteracy, the necessity for the prepara- 
tion and supply of competent teachers, and the 
equalizing of educational opportunities through 
a national department of education. 

(c) The united strength of Protestant 
Christianity should be used to promote the 
provisions of the Smith-Toivner Bill. — This bill 
creates a department of education in our 
national government and places a secretary of 



120 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

education in the president's cabinet. It, for the 
first time in our national life, provides a 
national educational policy. This is done with- 
out limiting the local initiative and self- 
government of states and cities. Protestant 
Christianity should put itself on record as the 
ardent champion of the public schools. 

(d) To supplement the system of schools 
which the state will build for the secular train- 
ing of its citizens, the church must project a 
parallel system of religious schools. — Such a 
system of religious schools would involve : 

(1) The securing and training of an army 
of religious teachers, both professional and vol- 
untary. This would mean 

(a) The establishing of research and 

graduate schools in religious ed- 
ucation. 

(b) The creating of departments of re- 

ligious education in church col- 
leges. 

(e) The founding of a system of 
teacher training schools and in- 
stitutes for the training of the 
voluntary workers. 

(d) The creating of professional 
associations for the self-devel- 
opment of both voluntary and 
professional workers. 



A SYSTEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 121 

(2) The creation of a curriculum for all 
grades of church schools. 

(3) The establishing of week-day and vaca- 
tion schools of religion. 

(4) The strengthening and vitalizing of the 
educational program of each local church. 

(5) The establishing of parent-training 
courses in the interest of religious education in 
the home. 

(6) The creation of community programs of 
religious education through which the church 
will use music, art, drama and recreation as 
agencies for the spiritualizing of the ideals of 
the whole community. 

(7) The creation of a system of organiza- 
tion and support which will be adequate to sus- 
tain a school system, involving thousands of 
teachers and millions of students and costing 
billions of dollars. 

(8) The creating of a system of supervision 
and control which will preserve denominational 
and local autonomy and still secure essential 
unity of program and policy for the entire na- 
tion. 

An exhaustive survey is now being conducted 
under ^he auspices of the Interchurch World 
Movement for the purpose of securing the 
factual basis upon which such a statesmanlike 
program for religious education can be built. 



122 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

The seriousness with which both the church and 
the state are attacking their educational prob- 
lems gives large promise that the present period 
of stress and storm will issue in a program of 
education for the American people which will 
insure a cultured, efficient and righteous citi- 
zenship. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1. On Educational Organization and Adminis- 
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Allen, AVilliam H. : The United States Bureau of 
Education as Educational Supervisor and Sur- 
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Athearn, Walter S. : Religious Education and 
American Democracy, pp. 143-155, 239-248. 

Ayer, L. p. : School Orgamzaiion and Administra- 
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Bagley, W. C. : The Training of Teachers as a 
Phase of Democracy's Educational Program, in 
Educational Administration and Supervision, 4:1, 
pp. 49-53, January, 1918. 

Ballow, Frank W. : Efficient Finance in a City 
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Briqgs, Thomas H. : A National Program of Sec- 
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pp. 301, 306, March 16, 1918. 

Coe, George A.: A Social Theory of Religious Ed- 
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Cook, Albert S. : Centralizing Tendencies in Edu- 
cational Administration : The County as a Unit for 

123 



124 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

Local Administration. In Educational Adminis- 
tration and Supervision, 4:3, pp. 133-41, March, 
1918. 

CuBBEELEY, E. P. : PuhUc School Administration. 

CuBBEELEY, E. P.: Scho'ol Organization and Admin- 
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Dewey, John: Organization of American Educa- 
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DiPFENBAUGH, W. S. : School Administration in the 
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Davis, H. B.: Reorganization in Municipal Admin- 
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128, August 2, 1919. 

FuLLEE, Edwaed H. : Educational Associations and 
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FuEST, Clyde: The Place of the Educational 
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HoLLiSTER, H. A. : The Administration of Education 
in a Democracy. 

KoLBE, Paeke E. : War Work of the United States 
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KoLBE, Paeke R. : Cooperative Agreement Between 
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Education, and the Federal Board for Vocational 
Education, in School and Society, 7:178, pp. 610, 
611, May 25, 1918. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 125 

Lane, Secretary : Illiteracy in the United States, in 
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126 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

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128 A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

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INDEX 



Academic freedom, 61, 62 
Academy, American, 38 
Administration, problems of, 

57-67 
Arnold, Matthew, 38 

Bibliography: 
on organization and admin- 
istration. 123-126 
on English education bill, 

126 
on evolution of public school 

system, 126-127 
on present educational ten- 
dencies, 128-129 
Board of education, powers of, 
66 
denominational, 78, 79, 81 
Bolshevism, 24 
Boy scouts, 21 
Briggs, Thomas H., quoted, 

59 
Bureau of education, 20 
Bureaucracy, 54 

Camp Fire Girls, 21 
Catholic schools, 118 
Christian associations, 21 
Christian citizenship the basis 

of local control, 95-98 
Church board of education, 

78-81 
Church colleges, 108-111 
Church schools 
system of, 31 
Commissioner of education, 

U. S.. 25 
Committee on education, 81 
Community Council of Re- 
ligious Education, 104 
Community music, 88 
Community responsibility, 65 
Community surveys, 92 
Cooperation in religious edu- 
cation, 82-95 
Correlation of 
denominational and interde- 
nominational machinery, 
100-107. Ill, 112 



Correlation of 

public schools and church 
schools, 107-117 

schools, colleges and agen- 
cies, 46-49 
Curriculum 

evolution of, 49 

fusion of, 113 

modification of, 14 f. 

secularization of, 22, 51, 52 

social case of, 18 

Denominational educational 

machinery, 73, 112 
Denominational ideals, 97 

Education 

bureau of, 20 

dual system of, 35, 39, 45 

equalization of opportuni- 
ties for, 27, 28 

financial support of, 62-65 

health, 14 

industrial and vocational, 15 

mllitarj', 14 

national department of, 26 

national system of, 25 

place of religious, 29-31 

present emergency in, 119 

present tendencies in, 13-31 

secretary of, 26 

secularization of, 51, 52 

social, 17 

two theories of, 21-23 
English free schools, 37 
English labor education bill, 
38 

Girl scouts. 21 
Gymnasium, 34, 37 

Health education, 14 

Herbart, 22 

High school 
universalized, 19 
development of, 19-2J 

Home missionary board, 74 



131 



1S2 



INDEX 



Interchurch world movement, 
121 

Interdenominational coopera- 
tion, 82-95, 111, 112 

Interlocking boards, 79 

Indoctrination, place of, 23, 24 

Industrial education, 15 

Jewish schools, 114 

Kindergarten, 43, 46 

Latin schools, 42, 46 
Leadership, 117 
Lehrersemmas, 33, 45, 46 

Maiden plan, 82-95 
Mann, Horace, 42 
Materialistic theory of educa- 
tion, 22-24, 54 

National Education Associa- 
tion, 55-57, 107 

National religious education 
association, 104 

National system of education, 
25-29, 107 

National system of religious 
education, 69-122, 107 

Naturalistic theory of educa- 
tion, 22-24, 54 

Pageantry, 89 

Parochial schools, 69 

Paternalism, 54 

Principles of organization, 57- 

67 
Professional growth, 81, 120 
Prussia, 

ultimate sin of, 33 

effect of educational sys- 
tem, 55, 82 
Public schools, 

system of, 32-52 



Raikes, Robert, 37 
Religious education, 

as missionary extension, 75 

place of, 29-31 

program of, 52 

standard organization for, 
83 

subordinate to publicity, 71 

system of, 69-122 

San Francisco, 63, 65, 77 
Secondary schools, 37 
Secretary of education, 26, 
Secularization of public 

schools, 51-52 
Smith, Payson, quoted, 58 
Smith-Hughes Bill, 16, 45 
Smith-Towner Bill, 26-28, 55, 

119 
Social education, 17 
Social solidarity, 49, 50 
Sunday school, 22, 24, 37, 52 
Sunday school board, 74 

Teacher-training schools, 49, 

111, 112 
Territorial relationships, 99 
Text books, 59, 61, 62 
Theories of education, 20-25 
Three methods of teaching re- 
ligion, 69 
Tolstoi, 24 

Unit of organization, 57 

Vacation Bible schools, 95 
Vocational education, 15 
VolJcsschule, 32, 33, 37, 45 

Week-day religious schools, 
95, 108 

Young People's Board, 74, 75, 
81 



